Cabin in the Woods director Drew Goddard goes in-depth about the secrets of the movie with Quint! Beware of heavy spoilers!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. So, it’s finally time to run this super spoilery interview with Cabin in the Wood’s director, Mr. Drew Goddard.

And I do mean spoilery. We go into great discussion about the mythology of Cabin in the Woods, talk about the challenges of the last act of the movie, some of the nuances of the… flavor… of this unique and ambitious idea stewed up by Joss Whedon and Goddard… I’ll be vague here just in case someone didn’t notice the giant red SPOILER box around the headline, but be warned… we don’t gently dip our toes into this material in the interview… we jump right the hell into the deep end.

Once we’re past the first picture (also a spoiler) I don’t want to hear any bitching about being spoiled. I held this interview for a reason, to give you ample time to see the flick.

Odds are that you’ve enjoyed the film as much as I did or else why would you be reading this? I hope you find this chat with Mr. Goddard enjoyable and, dare I say, enlightening… at least a little bit.

So, one more, final, warning… Don’t read this if you haven’t seen the movie! Scroll down if you have and/or just don’t shive a git. Enjoy!

Quint: I loved your film.

Drew Goddard: Thank you! This works out well. (Laughs)

Quint: When I saw it at Butt-Numb-A-Thon...

Drew Goddard: Oh, I wish I could have been there. I really do.

Quint: Everybody on the site is so on Team Whedon and I’m a little bit more on the outskirts. I liked FIREFLY a lot, but I never really got hooked on Buffy… I bring this up only to explain that I wasn’t the easy sell on this movie and it kicked my ass. Not that I actively disliked the work that you guys have done, but...

Drew Goddard: No, I get it.

Quint: When the title card came up, I’m like “Okay, I’m on board.”

Drew Goddard: (Laughs) That’s good to hear. There’s a lot of debate as to whether or not people would get that title card. It was nice.

Quint: I grew up with horror, so I loved seeing a loving deconstruction. There’s only really a few authentic smart looks at the genre that deconstruct it, but in a very loving way and it’s not coming from a “Hey guys, isn’t it silly that all of the virgins live and all the sluts die?” and “If you get stoned, you’re going to die.” I think a lot of people saw SCREAM and a lot of filmmakers were like “Oh, I get it. I just have to say ‘This is stupid’” and that’s not what Scream was.

Drew Goddard: That’s right, they took the wrong lessons from SCREAM.

Quint: Honestly, that’s what kind of hooked me into the world of Cabin in the Woods. I could honestly feel the passion that you guys have for genre and so I guess we should maybe start with just talking about that passion and just how you guys walked that balance of wanting to play with the genre, but not put yourself above the archetypes.

Drew Goddard: You know I think it was pretty easy, because we didn’t set out to deconstruct the genre. We didn’t set out to subvert. We knew that that would happen, but that wasn’t the goal. The goal was just to write a movie that we loved, because we love the genre. It really came about with Joss and I looking at each other and saying, “Let’s write something together. If we could write anything and not worry if a studio is going to make it, let’s just write for the sake of writing. What would we want to do?”

And we latched onto the horror genre very quickly, because we hadn’t done sort of balls out horror together. Certainly with some BUFFY episodes we did a little bit, but we really wanted to go for it. That approach was very organic in the sense that we just said, “Okay, if we are doing a horror movie, what do we want to do? Let’s just put everything we want to do in it and see what happens.” It was never like this goal of deconstructing or subverting.

Quint: So it was more of a “kitchen sink” approach where you are just like “I love so much about the genre, why don’t we see how much of it we can fit into one story?”

Drew Goddard: Yeah, a little bit. That was certainly how we began and then once you do that you start shaping it and then the themes start to come out and you start to say, “Oh, this is interesting. Let’s think about this.” But it was never like… I think what you’re talking about, in terms of people taking the wrong lessons from SCREAM, I think the thing I love about SCREAM is it was obvious they loved horror movies and I don’t get the sense that some of the people that tried to be like that did, you know?

Quint: No, they just tried to copy the success.

Drew Goddard: Yeah and I feel like that was what we did. We just set out to make a movie we wanted to watch.

Quint: We have to talk about the basement. That’s a thing… for the next 15 years you could go back every year and do a movie where they pick a different item. You realize this, right?

Drew Goddard: (Laugh) Yes.

Quint: And every time there would be a different outcome. The set dec was incredible.

Drew Goddard: Incredible.

Quint: I didn’t even notice… That was my second time watching the movie last night and I didn’t even notice the unicorn tapestry that you mentioned during the Q&A.

Drew Goddard: It’s down there! There’s a lot down there that requires some freeze-framing.

Quint: What’s your favorite object and the monster that’s associated with it that might not be as obvious?

Drew Goddard: Well, my favorite object for sure is our sort of Rubix Cube ball. That was a little more obvious, but I love it. The prop design is just spectacular.

Quint: And what’s great about is even though it’s not the HELLRAISER cube, anybody who watched a horror movie in the eighties looks at it and when he starts clicking it together, you’re like “I know what that represents…”

Drew Goddard: Right, it certainly conjure that up and that was one of the times we got the most sort of specific, because I felt like in HELLRAISER they really did create a modern myth, you know?

Quint: Clive Barker is really good with that. CANDYMAN still scares the shit out of me.

Drew Goddard: Yeah. I mean he really is good at creating those icons and so much of this movie is about icons. It wasn’t about shout outs, it was about “Let’s honor the myths” and I feel like in the last 20 years there have been some that are worthy of the pedestals alongside werewolves and vampires, I feel like there are some that deserve to be up there and that’s certainly one of them.

Quint: So for people who watch the movie the weekend that it comes out, are there things that you might want to tell them to look out for? Either in the basement or something to go back when they go back and take their friends? Is there anything specific that you might want to highlight?

Drew Goddard: Not really. I designed this movie… frankly just because I have to watch this movie thousands of times, I designed it to get better the more you watch it, so we definitely packed a lot in there for repeat viewings so that it sort of reveals itself as you keep watching and I don’t want to ruin that for other people. Just know we put a lot in there. There’s a lot on there. (Laughs)

Quint: So, you have the elevator scene.

Drew Goddard: Right.

Quint: And the shit gets real.

Drew Goddard: Shit definitely gets real! (laughs)

Quint: This was kind of touched on in the Q&A last night and I’m trying to reword it, because I don’t think they quite asked what I’m trying to ask. I think they asked like “Oh, what monsters didn’t make the cut?” Obviously pretty much everything that horror has spewed out is in the movie in some form, but is there something that you wanted to feature more that was kind of more relegated to the background?

Drew Goddard: Not really. The truth is I got to do everything I wanted. That’s the nice part about being the director is you sort of get to do it and when you want something they make it happen. Even budget, you know? We didn’t have a very high budget, so some of the stuff I wasn’t sure we could afford… we would always find creative ways to do it. We would always just find a different way of doing it and I find with horror, and Joss and I talk about this a lot, it’s hard to find a lot of really good big budget horror films. There’s something about the rough edges and the creative use of things that just makes horror films better. That’s why we didn’t want to do a big budget version of this movie. We wanted to feel those rough edges and when it came to our creature design we would just do the best version we could and found that worked out much better than if we had spent the money to make the perfect digital version of it, you know? It just worked better.

Quint: What I love about that sequence is much is that it puts you in the mentality of the guys running the “office,” where you’re like “Shit, if I were working there I would be in the betting pool, too. I want to see the merman!”

Drew Goddard: Right.

Quint: I just loved seeing that stuff and the flavor of the universe, by showing glimpses of what could have been had one of the characters picked up a different item. It just expands the universe so much bigger than I was expecting it to.

Drew Goddard: That’s nice to hear, certainly.

Quint: The third act is almost a different movie, but it doesn’t feel like two jarring films mashed together. How difficult was it to balance the tone of both sections of the film?

Drew Goddard: It’s the hardest part of the job, maintaining tone on this movie, because we shift gears so much, often in the same scene. That was definitely the biggest challenge, but the thing that’s easy about is is that there’s no manual for tone. Tone is just subjective. It’s just what I like. That’s all that it can come down to. There’s no right or wrong with tone, it’s just “This is what I like,” so I just had to police it. It kind of just had to come down to my gut. It’s a really hard thing to communicate. People are like “Well why is that joke okay, but this one is too broad? That joke is pretty broad.” And I would say, “I don’t know, but it feels right to me that we are doing it here and not here.”

Quint: Apparently you freaked out somebody in the audience last night by shooting Anna Hutchison very sexily, but to me it’s all done with a reason. It’s all playing with established archetypes and it’s always done with a twist. There is kind of an explanation for why she’s suddenly the sexy dumb blonde after she dyes her hair.

Drew Goddard: She’s pre-med! It’s definitely in there.

Quint: Yeah, but I love that the jock was smart and I love that the dweeb was also heroic. That’s something that you and Joss do very well, you take established things and just spin them just a little bit.

Drew Goddard: Yeah, that was the goal.

Quint: So are you going to talk to Guillermo del Toro about coming in and doing the sequel?

Drew Goddard: How great would that be? We had talked with Guillermo a lot. I love that man and I’m excited for him to see this, I hope he knows that.

Quint: That’s all I kept thinking about when the mythology of the movie that you set up. I was just like “Oh man… Somewhere Guillermo’s got a giant smile on his face.”

Drew Goddard: (laughs) That would be fun.

Quint: We should talk a little bit about the mythology. At what point did that solidify for you? There must have been a point where it became more than just “Oh, this is all an experiment,” when you actually figured out there was a really fascinating mythology around the need to tell scary stories.

Drew Goddard: Right.

Quint: And for horror viewers especially I think that’s crucial, because I think if you hadn’t done it that way it, if it had been more of an experiment, it would have been more of a fuck you to horror fans for even liking the movie. The way you set up this mythology, though, the office guys, in their own way, are the heroes of the story.

Drew Goddard: That’s right. Someone else was asking me about the villains and I was like “I don’t think there are villains in this movie.” I mean everyone has their point of view and both points of view are right, it’s just “Which one do you come down on?” I’ve come down on both sides at various points in my life, you know?

It was important to us that the questions of CABIN started with that basic question of “What is it about watching kids get slaughtered on screen that people like? Where does that come from?” Then you take that a little further and you start to think “Why do we feel this need to idealize and then marginalize and then destroy youth? Why does that happen in our culture?” It’s not just in horror movies, it just sort of happens where you build these kids up and then you rip them down and we are doing that constantly. You can extrapolate that to there’s a reason we are sending our kids off to fight our wars and we are not doing it. They are our fodder.

The more you explore those questions the more it built our mythology, because you start to realize this is not limited to just recent horror movies or horror movies in general or cinema in general, this is something we’ve been doing forever and that just suggested a much bigger mythology to us and just suggested a picture that wasn’t limited to any one thing. It was more about who we are as people and the mythology sort of built from there.

Quint: The casting on the is movie is so spot on in every aspect, from the kids to the Crazy Ralph character (Mordecai, played by Tim De Zarn), but I can’t imagine what this movie would be without Bradley [Whitford] and Richard [Jenkins].

Drew Goddard: I actually yelled in a meeting early on, “If I can’t have Bradley Whitford, I don’t want to make this movie!” (Laughs) Because I just couldn’t imagine anyone else and thank God he said “yes” or we might not have made the movie! (laughs)

Quint: And they work so well off of each other. They hit that amazing balance of guys that have worked together for a decade or more, they know each other in and out. They are professional, but they’re also kind of coasting a little bit. I think with the office guys especially, if you mess that part up then the movie just becomes “Oh cool, I recognize that monster.”

Drew Goddard: It’s crucial. Yeah, they needed to bring that. That’s the thing I love about both of them, they can really make you laugh, but then also break your heart, so you really just believe this passion and sadness that’s within them that’s at the heart of this. These are men that have come to terms with the fact that they have to do a hard job, but they are still decent people, they just have a very difficult job to do.

Quint: And they have to some times use brevity to make it bearable. Just like soldiers on the battlefield, there’s a gallows humor to their line of work. If you are worried every day about the fate of the world, you have to use humor to alleviate it.

Drew Goddard: Absolutely.

Quint: Let’s talk about the kids. You got Chris Hemsworth before he blew up, but the entire cast is just very charismatic and I loved how the stoner played to the audience last night. You could tell whose side they were on.

Drew Goddard: Yes, that’s right. (laughs) It was a very pot friendly crowd last night.

Quint: But they work together as a unit and it’s a trickier chemistry than it appears on the surface because they have to work as friends before the influence of the cabin and the whole set-up, but also work together as the more stereotypical horror bunch of friends they turn into along the way. So, how difficult was it to find the right people? Did you have to put them all together before you knew that it worked or did you cast them individually?

Drew Goddard: Yeah, we mixed and matched a little bit just to see. It was tricky. This movie is interesting because we ask a lot of our actors; we ask them to play two roles essentially. We asked them to play a character and an archetype and there’s an internal conflict that is happening in each of them where sometimes the archetype is coming out and sometime the character is coming out and as the influence that you’re talking about goes down then the character gets to come back out and we have moments where you’re like “Oh, that’s the guy that we met in the beginning. He’s back.” And that’s hard. That’s hard to do and the actors that we chose, all of them, when they came into the audition they just played the character. I always said “Look, I can make you into an archetype.” That’s easy. But to find this character and let that happen… all of them just sort of got it.

When we started putting them together… The thing I didn’t tell them, but I realized it was so important, is that in these movies one thing I don’t like is when the kids don’t care about each other. I was like “If you guys don’t care about each other, then I don’t care about you.” They really are looking after each other. They really are caring about one another and that was crucial. I don’t think I told them to do that, it just sort of happened organically and that’s how we knew we were on to something.

Quint: You have an implied history with everybody, even the stoner and the hot chick had a little fling, but at such a young age where it wouldn’t conflict with the friendship. It’s all really smart. Some times you can have a movie that’s really smart, but isn’t fun and this is movie the reason why I think people are flipping out about it is that not only is it smart, but it’s a movie where you want to grab your friends and take them to go see it.

Drew Goddard: It was our goal.

Quint: Listen, there’s fun and there’s stupid and there’s a very fine line between the two.

Drew Goddard: That’s right. (Laughs) Was it Nigel Tufnel that said that? Yeah, no and you know I just said, “Look, first and foremost let’s have fun,” because I don’t want to go fucking watch a term paper! That wasn’t the goal. That’s the fun part about working with Joss, we never tell a story just for the sake of telling it, there’s always something more interesting at play and he is just unafraid to say “Okay, but now that we know what the core is, let’s have fun” and that’s the secret. I mean really just finding a strong core to the story and then once that’s happening, don’t worry about it. We don’t have to beat everyone over the head, just have a good time.

Quint: Was this SXSW screening your first time seeing it with a large crowd?

Drew Goddard: It was, yeah. It was the first time seeing the finished movie with an audience at all.

Quint: Were there any moments that you were really psyched that people responded to?

Drew Goddard: Yeah. It was fun to see… There was a lot. I mean there was a lot in the movie that I was surprised at the laughter it elicited, like there were laughs that I thought “I’m not sure the audience is going to get this.” There were things certainly where the studio was worried (about) and what was great about the SXSW crowd, so many times they were ahead of the movie like just ahead enough that they could see something bad was about to happen to somebody and they could anticipate where that was coming and you could just feel them start to light up and it was really fun to feel that rip through the crowd, you know?

Quint: I think I know specifically which one you’re talking about.

Drew Goddard: There are two of them actually. There was one that involved the death of a character and one that involved elevators and they were just like “Oh, this is good.” You could feel the sort of people starting to figure this out and that was definitely fun.

Quint: How many times are you going to get to see the movie with a crowd? Is that a nerve wracking experience for you or are you at this point where you’re just excited to hear how it plays?

Drew Goddard: I’m at the point where I’m just excited. That’s actually one of the benefits of the movie being delayed a little bit. As a filmmaker it’s hard to watch the movie at first, because you’re just seeing “Oh, I wish I would have gotten that shot instead, I wish I had done this… Oh, that’s the day we didn’t have enough time.” Any time I’ve ever worked on anything as a director or writer, that’s just what happens when you watch a first cut and then after time you start to see it for what it is and then you start to appreciate it.

Now that a little time has gone by I forgot all of those things that I wish I had done and can just appreciate it for what it is and so it’s nice. It’s fun and audiences are having fun, so it’s nice to hear people laughing and clapping where you want, so I really enjoy it.

Quint: How happy are you that it’s not in 3D?

Drew Goddard: Oh, so happy. So happy. I mean I don’t know that I ever really believed it ever would be, but I knew that we had to go through that dog and pony show. The truth is I don’t even know if we could have made this movie in 3D. I shot this movie so dark. I like a dark frame for horror movies and dark frames just don’t convert. So if they actually had tried to convert this thing… Let’s say they made me, because Joss and I were like “No, we don’t want to,” but we agreed to explore it, because the studio asked us to and at the time it was very much a flavor of the month and we said, “Sure, we will look into it.” Then we did a couple of tests and it was just like I didn’t frame it for 3D, conversions don’t work, they don’t look as good and it’s so dark, it just would have been terrible.

Quint: It would have taken away from the movie. It wouldn’t have added anything.

Drew Goddard: It definitely would have. I mean I’m not against 3D. I like 3D, it’s just you want to plan for 3D. I did not plan for 3D on this movie.

Quint: In the digital effects world it’s what happened with THE THING prequel/remake. It’s like they shot with practical effects and they didn’t plan for as much CG, so that’s why the CG looks so horrible. Or you can be DISTRICT 9, plan for CG and they made some of the most amazing CG ever.

Drew Goddard: Yeah.

Quint: So what’s in the future? You have CABIN hitting in April. Where are you going from there? More features? Is that where you’re wanting to go?

Drew Goddard: Yeah, I mean the nice thing about my career is I’m at the point where I get to just go do what’s fun. (Laughs) Say I wake up in the morning and I want to work on a TV, I work on a TV show. If I wake up and want to write a movie or a comic book… It’s just nice. It’s sort of a dream and right now I’m just enjoying CABIN. It’s been a while and it’s just fun to see it, then we’ll see what happens next.

Quint: And it’s good that Lionsgate seems to be really behind it too, because there are a lot of really good movies that get shelved and then that becomes their identity. I mean shit, RED DAWN is still not out.

Drew Goddard: That’s right. Lionsgate really just got what we were trying to do and got on board and it’s been wonderful, you know?

Quint: It’s good to show that films don’t always have a shelf date. If it’s good and you screen it and people want to see it, it’s just like any other movie.

Drew Goddard: That’s right. Well the nice thing too is there’s something different about being shelved and just being at a studio that went bankrupt. I mean the same thing happened to THE HOBBIT and JAMES BOND, we all went down. No one’s saying “Why is THE HOBBIT sitting on the shelf?” even though it’s the same scenario. You don’t really worry about that, it’s worked out for us.

Quint: Right. The Hobbit wasn’t shot before the bankruptcy, but...

Drew Goddard: Right, but “Why hasn’t anyone got that going? Obviously everyone in the world would greenlight THE HOBBIT.”

Quint: Well, I’m excited to see whatever you guys come up with. I’m a big fan of what you guys did with CABIN. And I love seeing movies that look like movies again. It’s one of the reasons why I’m happy it wasn’t 3D because that would have detracted from its filmic look.

Drew Goddard: I know. I like film and I didn’t realize this at the time, but this might be the last time I get a chance to shoot on it. I’m so glad I did, because it’s a movie about movies as much as anything and I wanted to feel film. I want you to feel the rough edges. I want you to feel the grain, you know?

Quint: You have to if you are making a slasher film.

Drew Goddard: You want that.

Quint: The basic clarity of digital doesn’t jibe with what this sort of film is supposed to feel like… For me, at least. Now for the next generation that will be what it is, but I grew up on horror flicks having a little bit of texture to them.

Drew Goddard: That’s right. It gives you this sort of veil in between audience and character that instantly puts you on edge a little bit.

Quint: There’s just something about film. It’s what movies are to me. I guess at some point I’m going to have to get over it and stop screaming at the kids to “get off my lawn.”

Drew Goddard: I know. I feel the same way, because we’ve lost this battle. It was shocking to me going through this process and just seeing how different things are than when we shot this film, but so few theaters are even projecting film anymore and once that happens, then it is like there’s no point. It’s sad, but I’m glad I got to do it.

Quint: Yeah, I’m glad you got to do it, too. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.

Drew Goddard: It’s such a pleasure. I love the site so much. I love your work, so please keep up the good work.

There you have it. I’m a big fan of these lengthy interviews intended for post-release publication. It feels like a real conversation instead of one that’s darting around spoilers. I’d love to make this a regular thing with higher profile geeky flicks. I’m sure Christopher Nolan would be up for that, right? Heh.

Hope you guys enjoyed the chat and if you dug the flick drag your asshole friends who didn’t go last weekend to the theater. We don’t get good horror flicks like this too often, so support ‘em when they show up!

Just saw Cabin yesterday. And I will be dragging a friend to see it this weekend.<br>
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The only time I jumped in the whole movie was at the initial title. I just wasn't expecting it. The rest of the movie I had my defenses up.<br>
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So, kudos to Drew and Josh for making me jump at a movie. It's been a long long time.<br>
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And feel free to make a sequel, but not in 3DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.
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I disliked/was disappointed by Attack the Block, Raid and Scott Pilgrim. So I was pleasantly surprised that Cabin was finally the real deal -- a movie worthy of all the hype it is getting from this site.

I wasn't completely blown away by either BUT upon second viewing, Attack the Block got better. I think Raid will as well.
Tucker and Dale vs Evil was another on I was really looking forward to but was a little disappointed after watching it. I liked it, just didn't love it.

Sorry guys, Cabin didn't do it for me. I'm still waiting for American horror to get it together. Thank god for the French the past couple of years. I don't want to see comedy and horror. If I go to see a horror movie I expect to get scared, not watch a Buffy/Supernatural episode.

Who purposefully screwed up the wiring on the cave-in? Granted, it could've been the stoner from the elevator room...but why, then, was his treated weed counteracting all of the pheromones?
It's implied there was an Inside Man working against the success of the project, but it seems to have been a plot line that was dropped.

I love the different shots I've seen of the betting board (it all went by too quick in the theater... and I saw it twice last weekend). But the one name on the board... Kevin... still cracks me up.
Anyone have a clue has to which "thing" Kevin was?Was it just a "Jason" reference?

There is nothing that was left hanging, the "inside man" was definitely the stoner.
They said that the malfunction came from "upstairs." The whole complex was underneath the cabin, so therefore "upstairs" would imply the kids in the cabin. Then shortly after that reveal we see the stoner has been messing with the electrical system. Not exactly rocket science to make that connection.
Also, his weed, they complained that he had treated it himself and thats why it wasn't working. I think the quote was, "he treated the shit out of it." or something like that.
So, no plot hole there.

I got the feeling it was Truman, the guard that was in the control room with the 2 techs but they never really expanded on it.
Still, great movie.
One thing about the trailer, it did spoil 1 thing for me. I knew Marty (the stoner) wasn't dead because the trailer had the scene where he and Dana find the elevator in the floor.

...fundamentally it's not a horror movie. It's not even a deconstruction, in the truest meaning of the word. It's an homage/pastiche, in very much the same style as Behind the Mask or Trick R' Treat.
I really liked it but then I really liked those other two, too. Folks are so starved for decent original horror/fantasy cinema right now that a lot of people overreacted to this on its initial release but don't judge it by its most enthusastic supporters. Judge it instead for how well it accomplished what it seems to have set out to do and I think you'll find that it was a success. This was a clever little amusement park ride of a movie. In the current environment that is rare enough.
As for your bow to the French, I would largely agree. They have turned out some pretty intensely disturbing stuff over the last decade, and the Spanish haven't exactly been slouches either.

Good way to look at it. My expatiations were too high for it to deliver. I just expected something totally different. I knew it was going to be a homage or send up of horror movies much like scream was, but I expected it to be scary. It was more comedy then horror. I'll give it a re-watch in a year. I do have mad, mad love for Behind the Mask. I thought that movie is sadly underrated. Hell, I enjoyed it more than Cabin.

What was the point of the show if there was no problem breaking the illusion by the teenagers crashing into the force field or being killed by convention means (bullets). I mean, why freak out about the stoner finding the hidden camera since it didn't matter? Even if the "choice" in the basement was the key factor and they just need to die, then why even bother sending in monsters? Just gun them all down, hit the poison gas button, blow up the cabin, etc. and get it over with. It was the fate of the world after all. That just really bugged me. There was no need to break that rule with the motorcycle crash (especially since they already did that gag with the bird) and inside the facility it could have been a simple capture and release back in nature instead of sending the SWAT team in to shoot and kill.

In another interview somewhere, Goddard described Kevin as a guy who looks like a sweet Best Buy employee, until he starts dismembering you. Apparently he's in the background in the third act monsterpalooza.

In the original screenplay, Marty talks about having "a super secret stash that even my secret stash doesn't know about." So basically he's smoking weed that hasn't been treated by the Chem department. I'm not sure why they ended up dropping this line, but there you go.

They couldn't just gun everyone down because 'The Old Ones' needed/wanted/demanded to be entertained.
The motorcycle crash was just so the survivors could see something was up. I think they could have done without the bird hitting the wall and the motorcycle crash would have been more of a surprise.

Tangentially-related THE RAID rant: I learned to expect less after the ridiculous hyperbole surrounding The Raid (somehow it's the new Die Hard / Rumble in the Bronx, yet it has absolutely NONE of the humor which was such a big part of both of those films). As a martial arts fan, I gotta agree with lostboy that the last decade of thai movies have been infinitely superior, action-wise. The Raid is just more apt for American audiences because it plays the modern cliche of supreme melancholy / sadistic brutality that our audiences are primed for.
At my screening of CABIN IN THE WOODS, the (small) audience didn't respond very well. My friend and I were the only people laughing at all, while the comments I overheard suggested that many of them were disappointed. I heard more than a couple people saying things like "that was dumb". suggesting that they would have been happier with a third as much plot. I think some people had a bad reaction simply because it mocked their expectations when they wanted another second-rate torture porn to distract their date. Kinda seems like the movie overestimates the intelligence/depth of the masses.
That said, I was pretty bored during most of the 'zombie redneck torture family' scenes, but always entertained by the suits and, of course, the ending monsterpocalypse.
It seems like the low box office will probably delegate its sequel to some nobody directors and writers who will churn out a terrible direct-to-video flick that contradicts, misinterprets, and tarnishes a film that could have potentially had an epic lineage (if it played as well for mainstream audiences as it did for cinephiles/fanboys/critics). I hope not. Even though I found this film to be somewhat flawed, it was still the best new horror I've seen in a looong time and I would rather see another from the same team / same caliber team than the kind of Platinum Dunes dreck that passes for horrortainment these days.

I think the weed was treated so the stoner would be more susceptible to the pheromones but he smoked so much he built up a resistance instead.
I thought they said the hair coloring was also treated which is why the blonde was acting so unlike herself.
I'm not sure what was done to the other 3 though so I could be way off.
Maybe the football for Thor, the glasses for the other guy (it seemed to me they made a point of him putting them on). Maybe the other girl was suppose to take the books which she didn't end up taking.

You understand what I mean by "rules" right? As you just stated, they couldn't just do that because the Old Ones needed to be entertained (plus the movie would be 30 minutes long). Then they decided they could when it suited the writers desire to get a SWAT team eaten by monsters or Thor to crash into a wall in a big sure to surprise the audience CGI crash (which was blown by the bird gag earlier in the movie). For as "smart" as this movie is described, I thought those were two very glaring mistakes that could be attributed to lazy writing.

I thought this gag worked beautifully BECAUSE you knew that is was going to fail. The acting, the soundtrack, all built it up to be a great heroic moment full of suspense, when you KNEW it was going to fail. I loved how that worked, it had me both excited and tense and laughing about what was clearly going to happen, all at the same time.

Sure some things on your list is good, but some are flat out jokes.
My List (off the top of my head):
Hard Candy
The Ring (remake)
The Strangers (one of the best of the decade)
Blair Witch (still the best of the lost footage genre)
Session 9 (Another best of the decade)
martyrs
irreversible
À l'intérieur
haute tension
let the right one in
devils rejects
Mist
[REC]
May
The Others
Them
Bug

If they were ok with the SWAT team gunning them down LATER, why couldn't they have done it from the start. Also, why was it ok for Sigourney Weaver to try to kill the stoner. My guess are
1. That by the end, The Old Ones were entertained so it would have been ok to kill them however they could.
2. Everyone was in such a panic that killing the kids was the only thing on their minds. If it was not according to the rules, so what, the world was doomed anyway.
3. The SWAT team was made up of morons.
When questioned about rigging the game and betting, didn't one of the techs say the ones below didn't care about the fine details as long as they were entertained?
I think chuckmoose has a point about the motorcycle and the bird.

I think you're pretty much spot on - the impression I got was that by the end, all of the kids had met the "suffering" requirement in accordance with the rules, so the actual cause of death didn't matter by then. Killing them at the beginning wouldn't have worked because the other requirements of the formula hadn't been fulfilled.

I enjoyed the movie for the most part as a straight comedy. But stuff like the motocycle felt more like it was generated for shock than a laugh. Like there were only about 10 people in the audience I was at, but there wasn't any laughter at that scene (MAYBE there would have been with a larger sample size). I felt the Title Card work personally to express "this is a horror spoof", but I think I was in the minority and most people were still expecting more a horror film with comedy mixed in (a teammate reacted to the Title Card with a big "Uh oh... that didn't work" and thought it was all downhill from there). Scream worked because at its heart it was a straight slasher flick that used deconstruction for comedic effect. Cabin seemed like it just used the deconstruction as justification for kinda of a silly concept of Old Gods wanting to be annually entertained or they're destroy the Earth. I think this interview even bears that out. They were just trying to make a movie they would want to see. A light silly horror spoof for the most part that's probably way better if you're loaded. I really think anybody trying to make it out as more than that is really kidding themselves.

...made in 2007, might very well be my pick as the best horror movie of the last decade.
I'd have to think on it a bit before committing fully.
Once again, the movie is called End of the Line.
Some of the stuff on both the lists above is good (more on Screenplay's) and some isn't (more on RedWhite, but a lot of it seems to come from the fact he has a crush on Amanda Seyfried and the guys who made Saw).
Plenty of stuff missing from both. The Signal pops out as missing in action, Mulberry Street, Yellow Brick Road, Ekusute...bunches.
Screenplay, you're talking about Ils, the French version of Them, right?
Fact is, though, most of the good stuff either never makes it into theaters or gets extremely limited release.
Most people don't see them. Therefore, sad as it may be, for the purposes of a discussion like this they may as well not exist.
Ans RedWhite, good for you for waving that Romero flag. I like it too, and horrible as it is the movie does have that swimming pool scene and that scene is great.
Also great catch on The Children (the new one). The Children is certainly another film that would be deep in the running for best horror film of the last ten years. It was amazing.
And you're both wrong about The Mist. Sorry, you just are. Nope, not open for discussion on this one. I will not be rude and I will not listen to reason. Any other one, sure.

I agree on The Children. Very solid unknown horror movie. Yes, I'm talking about Ils (Them).
The Strangers is inspired by the same story, but done much better.
The Mist is great. The key is to see it in Black and White. Which is what Frank Darabont intended the movie to be in. It's a totally different feeling and I'm a huge Twilight Zone fan and it's basically a 2 hour TZ episode. I really, really loved it.

Yeah, I thought about Ringu too, but when I watched Cabin the second time I paid very close attention to the line and they were definitely referring to the American "team" having a glitch in 98 due to a chemistry dept error. So yeah, I don't know what it could be - only thing that really adds up is Scream, so maybe they just got the year wrong.

...the US version was The Strangers, not Them.
Sorry about the Mist. Won't be rude. Won't listen to reason.
I really hate what he did with the end. Thought it undercut the true horror that was in the story for the benefit of an extremely trite bit of 'irony'. Just turned the ending, for me, into a shaggy dog joke.

...approached from the direction you're taking, the sort of climax he added would have been almost essential. I just really loved that King story, which I read when I was a tot, and I loved the end, because I've always loved ambiguous endings.

I love her dialogue. I'm a huge, huge fan of Juno and young Adult, but Jennifer's Body was pretty poor. Esp. on list of the best horror movies. It shouldn't even be in the conversation, but I respect what you like. Cheers!

Thank you so much for being a Swashbuckler fan. There are so very few of us.
And John Addison also did the scores for Start The Revoltion Without Me, Sleuth, The Seven Percent Solution and a slew of others, though yes, the Swashbuckler score is my favorite.
And yes I do like Diary of the Dead. And I also don't think it's a very good movie, which it kills me to say. It was a mix of George not being able to hide his tiny budget, the timeline for a lot of the events not matching up in a logical way and a few really bad performances.
But I love Romero and I love found footage style movies (I know, I know, but I do) and I can't turn my back on it. Hell, I can't even turn my back on Survival.

I was shocked bc based on the trailers, I thought we saw him bloody and somewhere else. But when that blood spurted, I thought "Eh, maybe I'm misremembering," and just went with it. I thought for sure the end would be the girl dying on the dock, but that would instigate consequences and we'd get that demonbat seen in the ads too.
Point is, the movie got me. I'm glad I didn't pay attention to the ads too much and truly thought the stoner was dead. Great surprise.

The issue is the guys talk about the Director and "Downstairs" a lot, so when they throwaway a line about the problem coming from "upstairs", literally above ground, you remember the guys "Downstairs" and automatically think there must be a power up there as well. But in reality, it was an innocent throwaway line. Oops.

is about gigantic ancient "white devils" kept asleep deep beneath a strange abandoned cabin in da hood, as long as a ritual is performed correctly ...Out of 5 trespassers THE TOKEN BLACK MAN MUST DIE FIRST!...the monsters in the cabin struggle to look like they are messing up to AVOID killing the 4 white trespassers, but then the blonde athlete eats a bag of skittles in the basement, which summons the monstrous captain of the neighbourhood watch who shoots one of the innocent white trespassers ACCIDENTALLY (because they were wearing a hoodie) and well....a huge white fist smashes up through cabin in a nazi salute heralding THE END OF THE WORLD (and race relations)!

...I love you man, and I don't want to argue against a movie I really enjoyed quite a bit.
I thought there was a lot of clever stuff here, I enjoyed the callouts to other movies (I've already pointed out that my favorite was the view from the cellar in Evil Dead), some of the performances kept me smiling throughout...really I liked what I saw.
And it was great to have the folks in the office make the kids conform to various stereotypes through the use of drugs or by forcibly removing/presenting things to them. But beyond that none of this was new territory.
Not the need for sacrifice. Not the need to create monsters/darkness. Not the ritualized make-up of the victims. Certainly not the view that the audience or the creator is somehow ultimately the evil that condemns characters to their fate.
None of those facts make this a bad movie. Once again, I liked it. Quite a bit. But when the movie came out we had a lot of folks around here calling it a game changer or possibly even the end of horror as we know it.
And that was silly. This is a great little movie. I'm just saying let it be one.
But I'll be happy to debate on poionts with you as long as we go in agreeing that we both like it.

A movie criticizing pandering to the audience, only to pander to its audience in doing so. For fuck's sake, the payoff was a bunch of horror movie cliches going on a rampage, giving the dumbshits exactly what they want to see while feigning subversion. There was nothing groundbreaking or interesting about this movie. Its just a long insult aimed at people who actually want to see something original. Hack filmmakers who think the audience is the problem. I went into this movie completely unspoiled on the advice from AICN. Now I wish I hadn't. There was nothing to be spoiled, except for the fact that the movie was crap.
It can only really appeal to superficial hipster-douches who don't give a shit about whether the movie is actually entertaining or engaging, since it is neither. Its just a big in joke for the people who actually like the crap being parodied.
The whole premise of the fucking thing is that if you like horror cliches then you're dumb. It follows then that if you like a movie that completely depends on these retarded cliches then you're REALLY dumb.
If the filmmakers had any actual talent then they would have made something original, instead of just bitching that nobody is making anything original. Instead their movie is entirely dependent on the tired tropes that they claim to critique.
Scream took a similar self-referential premise and actually made a movie that worked as horror and created a believable world. This shit is all just winking at the audience.

By that point, they were desperate to end it and save the world. And by the rules, the teens had already been beat to shit, stalked by remorseless killers, and put through the ringer at that point and were still fighting through. I think the Gods had been entertained; they could be killed.

The bird crashed into the wall to establish that the wall was there so that when the motorcycle crashed into the wall a certain portion of the audience would not say something along the lines of 'why did that happen'. It is called establishing and it is something writers do, often to build suspense but even more frequently, sadly, to keep that certain portion of the audience to whom certain unexpected events are considered the story somehow cheating to feel as though they are being treated fairly.

My god, that the human race could possibly have a secret society that kills a handful of teenagers with monsters to get the world from ending. We should end it all and give someone else a chance. You know, since humans are so terrible. WTF was he smoking?

Oh yes, making it so that it no longer works as a shock and creating a huge plothole of breaking the illusion of the show for the stupid audience members (who minutes later will have to figure out that the stoner magically managed to hack into the system and stop the cave in that set up the whole thing based off a call coming "from above") is much better than killing Thor by virtually any other method that wouldn't break the illusion. It's either lazy writing or a bad joke that a small percentage of the audience got (typically, a bad sign is when you have to explain a joke after telling it).

We both really enjoyed the movie, and I'm glad about that! I'm just debating the deconstruction in the movie. Some of the examples you list you describe them with a sort of "nothing new there" attitude. My opinion is, just because you think there's nothing new there doesn't mean its *not* deconstruction. Know what I mean?
Its definitely deconstruction because its breaking down the how's and why's of horror movies. Why are the blondes stupid and sexy? Why does the jock make dumb, heroic moves and get himself killed? Why does the virgin outlive them? Why do these teens die?
And it does so in a way that ultimately serves the story. Sure, SCREAM explored this too, but it did so in a way that was purely self-referential while also adhering to the genre archetypes and cliches (main character is a virgin who runs up the stairs instead of out the door... except the door was locked- she tried!).
This movie gives explanations for why things are the way they are (which SCREAM did not do save to say those are the "rules"), and that's the deconstruction. Why do these teens have to die like this and why do they behave that way? In this movie, its literally because they HAVE to. They HAVE to be this way because that's what the ritual demands.
What does it mean for horror movies in general? Well, horror movies are a ritual bc they usually go through the same steps (like a ritual). And why does it happen that way? Because in a horror movie they HAVE to die. We as an audience go to see them die, and therefore they must.
It might seem obvious to you, but to me, its still a breakdown of why the genre works as it does while also cleverly serving the story. I loved the idea of drugging the characters to make them fit the stereotype, the "writers" literally forcing stupid decisions upon them to advance the plot and slake the bloodlust. Love it.

Sounds like you need to learn how to watch movies rather than just see them.
Despite a few minor flaws, Cabin IS in fact a smart movie. Your accusations that those who consider it to be one are dumb themselves made me fall out of my chair laughing.
Armchair "film critics" plague these talkbacks more and more, but these aggressive types like yourself make it a less frustrating and painful experience, and a much more silly one.

...it would have been better or worse than the character dying in some other fashion. Dramatically it was essential for the film to reveal to the female lead definitively that she and her friends were being kept at the cabin by some greater force.
The use of a force field at all, in fact, was one of my least favorite elements in the film, as the incidents that kept the would be victims trapped in the cabin should have arisen naturally from whatever doom they chose.
You know, as they do in the types of movies this film paid homage to. There are the old standbys such as the broken bridge, the roads that curl back on themselves, the destroyed or disabled vehicle, the ever popular woods themselves and so many more it would take a hundred years of film making to list them all.
All of these would have been more thematically consistent with the film's supposed intent and more satisfying for a fan of the genre.
And even all this is separate from the question of why it was necessary to reveal the greater force to the female lead in this way when moments later much more was revealed to her, far more dramatically, when the stoner reveals the path down into the base.
However, I was addressing why the bird was shown flying into the force field before Thor was. And once Whedon and Goddard chose to use the force field it was sound judgment on their part to preface Thor's flight with that of the bird.

*Despite a few minor flaws, Cabin IS in fact a smart movie. Your accusations that those who consider it to be one are dumb themselves made me fall out of my chair laughing. *
Anybody with half a brain knows that the cliches mocked in this movie are dumb. So we get a bunch of guys who are just smart enough to realize this who think the movie is smart. It isn't. You tell me that the horror genre in general is cliched crap? No shit. You want a cookie and a pat on the back because you made a movie about this? Nope. You'll have to do some work and create something original if you want my cookies.
Nothing in this film works except as a joke about the genre. Its in the same league as "Scary Movie".

April 19, 2012, 6:59 p.m. CST

by ballsxcrew

you misinterpreted everything man.
we are the old gods. we are the audience who needs grisly entertainment.
the movie is a love letter to horror, but is also asking us to question why we enjoy seeing these things. there is even a line in the movie that asks if it is a good thing to become immune to these images.
other than that, dudeham from earlier that mentioned the war commentary was spot on.

...and the in-movie explanation for all of these was what I covered in my first answer to you.
But a true deconstruction would have restrained itself to the types of films in which this ritual is followed. It would have, being a movie that delves into the rules, been scrupulous in observing them.
Think about the sort of movies you've watched where a group of kids go to a cabin in the woods to be slaughtered one by one. Think of the kind of things you've seen in them. Predominately, of course, slashers, supernatural or otherwise. And those are virtually the only movies that follow the script (deconstruction) set forth in Cabin.
The Evil Dead kills the virgin (maybe) first. Certainly it turns the character that would usually fill that part into a demon right off the bat. Hellraiser almost entirely trucked in adult deaths and torments and has never, even in all the terrible Eastern European produced sequels, set up your typical group of victims (the closest to that would be the one with the video game...maybe number eight or nine). And I can do this sort of list all day.
Now am I glad they included all those monsters? You bet, it was a great bit and I enjoyed Whedon finally getting to film the destruction of The Initiative in Buffy they way he'd seen it in his head. But it also constitutes a huge step away from the ritualized slaughter of the innocents theme the movie was supposedly going for. Because those things predominately happen, in that sort of ritualized order, in one sort of movie, the slasher film, which has slowly morphed its way to torture porn.
And real deconstruction depends on playing by the rules. I don't know if you've seen Behind the Mask but that movie did deconstruct the slasher film faithfully. By overreaching and trying to portray all horror as the same product Cabin stops being a true deconstruction. I still liked it. I'm glad they did it. But in order to try to deconstruct the entire genre (which the inclusion of these other monsters absolutely does) Goddard and Whedon would have had to broaden the scope of their movie (which would have robbed them of the cabin and so much of the ritualized death structure they would have probably lost their hook).
All right. That is my first and biggest point. I've got a few others but this is already long enough.

...it would have taken a couple throwaway lines of dialogue.
So the virgin has to die last?
In this set-up. Space monster it's a lady cop, tough woman scientist, maybe a chick forest ranger. Zombies it's the black guy. Maybe a woman gets out with him. Maybe. All depends.
Of course that sort of thing would have detracted from another theme Cabin never fully develops but plays with more effectively than it does a straight deconstruction of horror, which is the societal need to sacrifice the young and exceptional.
The problem is these are two separate things. By surrendering to the (understandable and to me delightful) urge to throw every monster they loved into the end of the movie they lost their way in making it an effective deconstruction of the genre.
I don't really care. Cabin wasn't scary but it made me smile for a very sizable bit of its running time and it actually made me laugh out loud twice.
I'll take it.

Thank you SO MUCH for posting the picture of the big whiteboard/betting board. This is something my buddies and I have been arguing about since watching "Cabin" last weekend. The monster that caught my eye was the Snowman, but since that villain doesn't show up in the final act, my friends don't believe me. This conclusively proves what I saw and I can rub it in their faces. Also, good interview.

...the tendency of humans to sacrifice their young to appease god(s) is not born from the same impulse as the urge to be frightened.
Now as writers I'm sure Whedon and Goddard have read Jung, understand the Mithraic and Green Man myths, the reasons behind sacrifices to Moloch or the Mesoamerican deities, even the Ishtar and Tammuz myth.
And similarly I'm sure they understand the human need for horror, the thing that made Shakespeare's first tragedy, Titus Andronicus, such a career making hit.
And I'm sure they understand that these are two different things.
What I imagine happened is that they arrived at the conclusion that the youth routinely slaughtered in slasher movies corresponded very nicely with the sort of youth sacrificed in ancient times, and that even the order in which they usually died was ritualized, as it might be in some sort of cinematic passion play.
But then they started thinking of all the cool stuff they could fill up the movie with. They started playing with horror tropes that in no way corresponded with their original premise but instead worked as deconstruction of the slasher film.
By the way, this is part of the danger of working with multiple writers. Especially when those writers are friends.
By the time they were done they had added so much cool stuff they really wanted to see (and I liked seeing it too) that they lost any type of clean deconstruction of the genre and had even muddied the waters of what had probably started them down the path of making this particular movie in the first place.
Just a guess, really. But I've worked with other people before, so I know this can happen. And it sure looks like what happened here.

That's all I've got. I intend to see this, after the hype, but it does seem to have a "meta" quality that I'm just not into. Movies reminding me that they are movies. Tarantino does this habitually, as does Kevin Smith.
T.'.

*you misinterpreted everything man.
we are the old gods. we are the audience who needs grisly entertainment.*
Yeah, I get this. And no, I don't need that kind of cliched horror to placate me. This is a movie for connoisseurs of cliched crap that simultaneously mocks them for liking it.
And its funny how you claim that I didn't like it because I didn't get it. Its not deep. I can hardly imagine anyone NOT getting it since it practically hits you in the face with its themes.
*the movie is a love letter to horror, but is also asking us to question why we enjoy seeing these things. there is even a line in the movie that asks if it is a good thing to become immune to these images.*
In other words its a circle jerk for fans of crappy horror movies.

I have to agree on End of the Line. A great lil low-budget Canadian horror flick. In probably the last 20 years only two movie end twists truly caught me off guard. The Mist and End of the Line. I won't spoil it for anybody here, as it needs to be seen.

I was not amused getting a comedy when I was promise a horror movie. Since everybody is in love with the deconstruction of the horror movie this does (by naming four sterotypical roles and making a bunch of homages to other films) in a nearly pure comedy format, didn't Student Bodies do this better in the early 80's? Sex Kills, Sex Kills. Halloween.... Friday the 13th. Why'd I have to pick a jogger? Sometimes Malbert pees red.

Saw it last weekend, zero tension or real scares, stupid zombies, crappy cgi and not even gory.
It wore it's cleverness on it's sleeve. More funny than anything else.
Slightly above a crapfest.
Just watched [REC2] now that is a movie. It wipes it's arse with tcitw.

...made your stomach drop. I need to watch it again now. I often make too bold statements about how this movie or that movie would certainly be in my top something of a given genre. But even with the evidence of the lists above and the other contenders that were made in the last ten year(ish) period, I can't believe it wouldn't be in at least my top ten.

I actually liked REC2 better than the first one. Of course I watched quarantine first, before I realized that it was a remake of REC so that may have left a sour taste in my mouth and ruined the scares.

*My god, that the human race could possibly have a secret society that kills a handful of teenagers with monsters to get the world from ending. We should end it all and give someone else a chance. You know, since humans are so terrible. WTF was he smoking? *
No you just don't get it. The story isn't supposed to be compelling or interesting in its own right, nor the characters believable. Its just about the cleverness of the metaphor.
Which is why it sucks so bad.

*What was the point of the show if there was no problem breaking the illusion by the teenagers crashing into the force field or being killed by convention means (bullets). I mean, why freak out about the stoner finding the hidden camera since it didn't matter? Even if the "choice" in the basement was the key factor and they just need to die, then why even bother sending in monsters? Just gun them all down, hit the poison gas button, blow up the cabin, etc. and get it over with. It was the fate of the world after all. That just really bugged me. There was no need to break that rule with the motorcycle crash (especially since they already did that gag with the bird) and inside the facility it could have been a simple capture and release back in nature instead of sending the SWAT team in to shoot and kill. *
This is an excellent point. The suits say something like "they have to make a choice and transgress so they can be punished." Implying that their deaths must follow as a logical consequence to their actions. But then they have no problem interfering when this doesn't happen. This movie truly is shit.
Another thing that I found stupid was their attempt to show that the characters were not really the stereotypes they were meant to be. They do this by telling us the jock is a sociology major. First they tell us, not show us. Hack move. Not relevant to the actual narrative at all, just relevant to the metaphor. Then there's the fact that it seems like every college jock I know has been a sociology, history, or political science major. So how is this even a deviation from the archetype? Maybe if he was a math or physics major it would be more surprising.

*CitW isn't mocking the audience or telling them that they are dumb for liking horror. It is playing with the tropes, twisting some of them, and going further with an explanation for why they exist. *
Its telling them that they are the angry old gods who demand formulaic horror regardless of its relevance to real life. So yeah, I'd say its calling the audience dumb. And I would agree. But the filmmakers in this case are no better.

1.Film should have made it VERY clear how much of the sacrificial ritual needed to be maintained to entertain the elder gods. Sending in SWAT and letting the jock crash against the barrier seemed very against the ritual therefore against the very logic of the film. This sacrificial ritual = films foundation = EVERY horror films foundation thus warranted exceptional clarity/rules/understanding (eg.sixth sense was successful due to clearly establishing rule of ghost interaction)
2.System purge button has no logical use...why release all monsters to kill staff that help maintain the worlds safety? system purge button = release elder gods button.
3.A yawn from the elder gods should have shattered all the glass monster prisons releasing them all.
3.Monsters should have their individual set of rules, eg. only able to hunt and kill the sacrificial kids, ignoring staff.
4.Every monster in film has a weakness...where were the silver bullets? holy water? daggers of meggidio? iron horseshoe? wooden stakes? spellbook/bible that casts monster back to where it came from?
5.the system purge button could have been a "weakness purge" which staff press in an EMERGENCY to make zombie hillbilly torture family stronger, faster, intelligent and invincible thus providing a much better challenge and forcing stoner to make choice of death by zombie OR death by elder god

Even as I was amused a bit at the over-the-top spectacle of the big monster-rama at the climax, I was thinking that 90% of those creatures, beasts, entities, etc., never appear in the kind of isolated-kids-in-slasher-setting that the film had set up as the culturally "American" version of the ritual.
That sort of disconnect was difficult to ignore, and had me feeling that the film was really going off the rails thematically. I still mildly enjoyed it on a certain level, but, though I also had some minor problems with bits earlier in the film, I was still hoping they'd really knock the third act out of the park.
Overall the film tipped toward a disappointment for me.

Rumble in the Bronx and all of the Thai action movies of the past few years have good action scenes but are completely awful in between those moments. At least "The Raid" is made with some level of competence and skill all the way through. I would have thought that any action/martial arts movie fan would appreciate the effort and skill that went into creating the diverse action scenes in there.
"Cabin in the Woods" wasn't great but was certainly refreshing and fun to watch. Angry Richard Jenkins cursing the Japanese schoolgirls was great.

They aren't calling the audience dumb, they ARE the audience. They wrote the movie because they love horror movies, and it was a project they wanted to do for fun, regardless of whether anyone bought it or not.
If you have ever taken any sort of college class, or paid (or from what I gathered are paying) attention in High School, the idea that humans have been exploiting or using violence for entertainment is not a new idea.
They are in no way criticizing this notion, they are examining it.
These guys played with that idea on a new level, while still making an effective horror movie as far as I (and many other peers of mine who share the same passion for horror) am concerned. Really, there are so many of us that will remember this film for years to come, our defending it is not a desperate attempt to attract more fans - we are sad that you are horror fans, and didn't seem to understand that these two know exactly where you, as a horror fan, are (or in your case, should be) coming from.
It is defending horror films, and defending you as a horror fan.
I'll try to believe your claim that you understood what was going on (though it is difficult since your first criticism was that the film relied on making fun of the formulas, and tropes and was akin to Scary Movie). However, the more I think about it, your calling it "garbage" with no substantial argument confuses me, and just leaves me wondering why your feelings are so hurt.

Even though this is a spoiler article, I'm not going to say specific things except....
I did like how the characters did fall into more stereotypical roles on some level once they approached the cabin. BUT... I would have had a lot of fun watching them change just slightly more dramatically (searched in my head for the right word there and that was the best I could come up with) and gradually even. BUT that's not really a criticism. Just something I thought would have been fun to see play out dramatically.
There were SO many *corner of my eye* moments, this is going to be one of those rare films that I will go back to in the cinema to see again just to try to catch them. Also why a blu purchase is in the future.
Bravo, everyone involved with this. Fine work, people. Fine, fine work.
I thought it was GREAT.. not just good. Great. Bravo.

*They aren't calling the audience dumb, they ARE the audience. They wrote the movie because they love horror movies, and it was a project they wanted to do for fun, regardless of whether anyone bought it or not.*
Then fuck them.
*If you have ever taken any sort of college class, or paid (or from what I gathered are paying) attention in High School, the idea that humans have been exploiting or using violence for entertainment is not a new idea.*
I'm a college graduate, and I am fully aware of violence as entertainment.
*They are in no way criticizing this notion, they are examining it.*
In what way do they examine it? What conclusions do they come to?
*These guys played with that idea on a new level, while still making an effective horror movie as far as I (and many other peers of mine who share the same passion for horror) am concerned.*
Effective?! Don't try to tell me anything in that movie scared you.
*Really, there are so many of us that will remember this film for years to come, our defending it is not a desperate attempt to attract more fans - we are sad that you are horror fans, and didn't seem to understand that these two know exactly where you, as a horror fan, are (or in your case, should be) coming from.*
Why the fuck would I or should I be in the position of liking crappy horror movies? This was just a retread of all the shit in the horror genre that has damn near killed it.
*It is defending horror films, and defending you as a horror fan.*
It isn't defending anything I like, and if its defending this kind of formulaic horror then fuck them with a purple rubber dick. If anything its reinforcing stereotypes about what constitutes a horror film.
*I'll try to believe your claim that you understood what was going on (though it is difficult since your first criticism was that the film relied on making fun of the formulas, and tropes and was akin to Scary Movie).*
It fucking did. Over and over again. For example the suits having to manipulate the characters into acting their parts, and doing stupid shit that would get them killed. Essentially acknowledging that the formula is retarded, since any real person would have to be forced into such actions.
*However, the more I think about it, your calling it "garbage" with no substantial argument confuses me, and just leaves me wondering why your feelings are so hurt.*
If given several substantial arguments. The narrative is incoherent, as domi pointed out. The characterizations are dumb. The metaphor overwhelms the plot. There is nothing appealing about any of it except as a joke/commentary on horror movies in general. Which is exactly what Scary Movie is. Only I think Scary Movie is actually not quite as bad because it isn't pretentious. Just gleefully retarded. And my feelings aren't hurt, I'm just pissed because I wasted time and money on this movie based on bad advice. I'm sure there are others out there that are getting sick of this kind of "meta" shit, which is really just pretentious spoofing for fanboys.

The answer is 5. And I'm still waiting for the apologies of all 5 people who reviewed them, thinking they were real.
I would prefer a personal apology from each, but I'm not going to have everyone thinking I'm some kind of entitled little bitch.

The numbers are not in on this for its second week, but it seems to be doing pretty well for a horror film (some are calling it a horror-comedy? Hmm..I wouldn't. Just because it contains humour doesn't mean it deserves the label of horror comedy). As of its first week, according to BOM it is already the 23rd highest grossing horror-comedy. But some would consider it a mild hit, or a near-flop. Huh???
Look as well at John Carter, which as of now has made almost 270 million worldwide. Or The Adventures of Tintin, which has made almost 374 million worldwide. Yet both of these films have each been called flops, failures by many people. John Carter is even still playing in my area and when I finally got around to seeing it in 3d, had been written off many weeks before as a flop. The screening I attended, during the day, was packed. It was not a discounted price. What are you left thinking when a film you're watching to a near-full house has out-lasted almost everything else that was released the same week or 2 IT was released?? And can still be seen in your town.. THIS WEEK... in 2d or 3d showings. (not a discount Theater, it's a huge one with an XD screen)?? What's up?
I think the problem is perception and certain people's perceptions being considered, respected, attenuated and spread more than others. I feel terrible for a film that has had millions spent on bad marketing. If that had not been the case for John Carter, I think the film would have made a profit. Advertising may make the media world turn, but these studios perhaps should take a second and third look at how they spend marketing and advertising dollars.
They say that because of John Carter alone, Disney would take a 200 million dollar operating loss in the second quarter of 2012. If you subtract the claimed budget from the grosses (only... I know that's not fully reasonable to do so) of nearly 270 million, that leaves 20 million in grosses left. How does that translate into a 200 million dollar loss? NOT a rhetorical question, it's a genuine one. It starts to feel like John Carter may just be a sort of scapegoat on some level. Yes, I know you cannot count costs and marketing against only the gross. Clearly. But you still have to wonder how the meth... ahem... I mean the math is done at the end of the day. I know when you reach a certain size and things are not going as well as you'd hoped, losses are a way to turn the tables in your favor. Just as, say, a mall is kept half empty rather than lower rents. Why make small gains when you can practically lose your way to a profit and start over?? This is clearly part of what's wrong with the way big money is played in the US in the last few decades.
I spoke personally to an owner of a shop in one of those malls. The economy was down in the dumps and the mall decided that was a good time to raise the rents. About half of the stores closed. The ones who remained were treated to another increase when their lease was up again, in spite of the fact that those empty stores had not been occupied in the year since the last increase. Eventually it ruined almost every business that remained, until they finally bulldozed the whole place and started from scratch all over again. It was obvious they were better off taking a loss and starting over with big-box retailers, franchises and a whole new set of sucke... I mean new small businesses who could write off their losses for the three years it took for it to be clear the NEW set of stores didn't help anything and another down economy started the cycle all over again.
That's just asking for disaster. Counting on failure long enough will eventually destroy the whole shebang.
LOGIC dictates that if a 270 million dollar gain is a failure, someone is making some much bigger errors in the chain of command that leads to the last link.
It also brings to mind the claimed losses of the music industry. Check out Rob Reid's TED talk about the 8 billion dollar iPod to see exactly what I mean about the lossmath these companies (and groups of companies) are using to claim losses. And yes, ALL of his numbers are DIRECTLY from industry claims of losses.
http://youtu.be/GZadCj8O1-0
Considering everything we've been learning lately about the entertainment industry in the last few years, is it at all that surprising that we have huge, worldwide hits considered failures and entire studios in bankruptcy even though they had giant hits under their belt, as well as substantial assets and intellectual property that they owned and could have monetized if they could have just loosened up instead of hiding everything away just in case all those empty Blockbuster Video stores happened to magically re-open?
...
Finally, I'm reminded of a story told to me while I was visiting a friend of my ex's who was dating a guitarist for a major band (still touring now, 12-13 years later). She relayed a story of their early problems when they were first signed to a major. The record company had claimed HUGE amounts of promotional money, yet their first record flopped. ALL while they were getting major airplay and attention and their live shows were consistently packed or sold out. They had a huge pressing of their CD yet everywhere they went their CD was either...
a. Sold out
or
b. Was simply not stocked. Or not stocked to meet demand while demand was hot.
Yet, someone at the record company had told the guitarist, a girl he had known for years, that she knew that thousands of their CDs had been literally dumpstered. They had spent TONS of money making these promotional *cut-out* versions of their CD marked *not for sale, for promotional purposes only*. See, the trick was that they could actually make these CDs for pennies, but they were charging quite a bit more than that per CD to the band against their advance, when you take into account the other promotional costs. All while the stores themselves could not seem to get enough copies while they were in rotation on MTV, and had too many later when the iron had already been struck.
There were other stories too. People in promotions who were supposed to be making calls to help push the band's songs in radio and in stores were making 20 second calls, or hanging up when put on hold. Going through the motions in other words. Setting up promotional meet-ups and contests with the band yet not letting the band know about these *appearances* until it was too late to fly in and show up OR would have cost the band thousands in last-minute airfares, which in some cases they paid for out of pocket just so they wouldn't look like assholes to their loyal fans. There were even more stories involving tours, stories about the company trying to turn the band members against each other, etc etc. It was insanity. Basically, they had written certain bands off as a loss without letting these bands know that was the case. Sometimes, even before signing them.
I think once a business starts to rely on losses as a primary way to stay afloat, the company (or industry) is in need of a major enema.... or about to implode completely.
Is that what's happening in the film biz right now? I wouldn't say for sure yes or no, but I have my suspicions.
And if this is too long for a talkback, you shouldn't have read it.

Jenkins and Whitford say, that they can stack the deck, but the kids have to make the CHOICES that put them in that situation.
Curt CHOSE to jump over the ravine and splatter himself. (this one is a bit more stretched, I agree).
Dana and Marty CHOSE to go down the elevator (down into the basement, AGAIN), and unleash whatever was down there. In this case, it was the SWAT team that they unleashed. It is precisely the same as what happened earlier in the movie, just with humanity killing them instead of the monsters.

I thought, for some odd reason, that it was important to note that grosses-wise, 2009 was the best year on record for the film industry, right in the thick of industry claims of gigantic losses due to piracy.
White is black.
Up is down.

So there's this group of cool teenagers and... I don't want to give it away, but... something really bad happens to them. The shit gets real when one of them uncovered who is behind it all. Then werewolves vs. vampires and a man in suit!

The Mist, The Signal, Kill List, Funny Games, Them, The Others, Antichrist,
Session 9, May, Battle Royale, Series 7, Vacancy (Probably alone on that one),
Final Destination 2 (c'mon, its awesome for what it is alright. If little Timmy going like a melon right infront of his mother doesn't let a tender orgasmic trickle of a tear roll down at least one of your eyes well then, your just inhuman to me, okay?), Island of the Dead (that one must be region specific I think)
Sex the City/Sex and the City 2
Love Actually

Sure there's a whole bunch of others missing off the top of my head.
Oh and I thought the ending to The Mist was excellent. To call it a shaggy dog ending or whatever is to miss the point entirely to me, but each to their own I guess.

I'm seriously having trouble wrapping my head around that. Like on the Evil Dead meter with Evil Dead 1 being straight horror, Evil Dead 2 being Horror Comedy, and Army of Darkness being Comedy with some Horror, Cabin seems squarely in the Army of Darkness ballpark. Just less slapstick and more joke-y.

I can certainly agree with the comments about the eagle (to some extent), but as Goddard says in the interview, they played it as a VERY macabre joke. And, it kind of worked. It think they over did the hero speech a tad. The moment the RV was backing out of the tunnel I looked at the bike and said "Dude's crashing straight into that wall."
But the SWAT team were just more "monsters" summoned by the kids going into the "basement". I put that together in about 2 minutes while watching the film.

I can't believe people are still trying to justify this as a "smart" movie and don't understand why others don't agree with them. Look, I'm a Whedon fan, I wanted to like this, I did like the comedy in it as well as the attempt at doing something different. But the plot was like some rejected season 7 Buffy device. Having some poster notes that, "oh that actually was meant as a joke", "oh it's was actually foreshadowing not a failed attempt at shocking the audience with a clever kill", "the people were actually the equivalent of monsters and the illusion was not broken", etc. isn't going to Monday Morning Quartback the Cabin into a great movie for me or anybody else that walked away with a similar take. Likewise, my letdown will not spread to people who enjoyed the movie. BTW Jason never needed to kill a bird with a machete to foreshadow killing a teenager later.

First, really enjoyed the movies. Every movie has loopholes, but if it's fun enough to let me overlook them, so be it.
But there's a reference in the interview about being able to extend this out over 15 years and show different monsters being selected, and therefore, different endings.
BUT: since this first movie actually ended with the failure to save the world, and the Old Gods being released to destroy everything, there can't *technically* be any 'sequels', right?
I guess they can go back and show us different scenarios leading UP to this first movie...but I don't think they can do anything AFTER this one.
Oh well.

Well....
I'll concede. It was hilarious. When I walked out, the first thing I thought about was the mythology and the characters, not the comedy.
But I still concede. You're right. After re-considering, I have to cave. It IS a horror-comedy. I just think it was FOR ME more horror.
In any case, I loved it. I'm still thinking about it. A LOT.

The whole thing was part of the show and in the next film there's a whole new team and all the monsters are back in their cozy cells. Sigourney was a homeless former actress assuming she was in an elaborate reality show. There are no *elder gods* controlling anything. The elders are controlled by aliens in orbit.
But THAT is cheap and stupid. ....
..unless their names are Kang and Kodos from Rigel IV...
..uhthankuverymuch....
I'll be here all night.

And the whole Old Gods thing was a huge lie by demons or whatever to destroy society, strengthen the Big Bad, impression a good force, whatever. I don't know, I guess I just wished they had an ending that ratched up the torment of the two survining characters and left it open (like Ash getting sent back in time to fight more deadites in Evil Dead 2) instead of the "a truck hits them and everybody dies" ending they went with. If this is really a deconstruction of a horror movie, you must end with "they always get up".

The very first scene allready setup that this was a controlled enviornment. What showing the wall does is provide the limits of that enviornment. It also sets up the only way in/out for the audience. Lastly, with all this information in hand, it allows you to see the Incredibly Dumb Decision a mile away, which makes the death entertaining. One of the cliches in horror films is inventive deaths, you got one. A couple others.. Death By Merman, Death By Unicorn.
Its writing that absolutely worked within the context of this film and the only people who consider it lazy writing are those for which the extent of their creative writing starts and ends with this talkback.

Caught the Ain't it Cool screening in Miami and I loved the film!!
One of my fave moments of the film was when they defeated the J-horror girl holding hands chanting. I almost died laughing.
Now, that the film HAS been made, and it has the record for being the most post-post-modern-meta horror w/e you call it thing to be put on screen, I would hope some artist puts a new/original frightening story that's less self aware and has no shame in being a horror film.
I say that, because thanks to Godard and Whedon, a lot of new horror movies have nowhere to go.

The Mist
Rec
Rec 2
Blood(anime)
Pontypool
28 Days Later
28 Weeks Later
Slither
Haute Tension
The Hills Have Eyes
The Last Exorcism
Thirst
Session 9
Pulse(Japanese version)
these are a really fun/good time
Pirahna 3d
Fright Night
B-team
Them
Splinter
the Crazies
I'm really dissapointed in what I came up with... I thought there would be more that spring to mind and yet
... Would you guys consider these next ones horror?
4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days
I Saw the Devil
Black Swan ( I like it much more when I think of it as horror)
The Road
United 93

Not many fear zombies or ancient gods taking over the world but wouldn't a horror film be more horrifying if the world was taken over by......
1.Homosexuals
2.African Warlords
3.The KKK
4.Paedophiles
5.Islamic Terrorists
It would be interesting to see a horror movie expand real world horrors.

Was lucky enough to see the advanced screening of this movie in Minneapolis. According to Drew Goddard Sigourney Weaver was amazing to work with. Apparently the first thing she asked about was where the werewolf was? She then asked Drew to sign her script. That woman is class upon class....

That was my favorite angle from the film, that it not only covers basically every horror film, but even incorporates the (more or less) father of the genre, with the ancient ones. Who of course can never be seen in full. The best thing about this film I think is that the premise is indeed good enough to keep making these films(would top horror franchises like Saw I think) yet at the same time, you can never top the surprises of this one. The word deconstruction of the genre has been thrown out there a couple of times already, but I think this is the first time it's actually true. Fucking awesome film! (and the Joss Whedon Chris Hemsworth tour continues next week with the Avengers!)

Because homosexuals do not qualify as real world horrors to me. Then again I was born and raised in Amsterdam so I do have sort of an extreme progressive tolerance .Gay, straight, bi-sexual, trans-sexual, whatever you are, as long as you don't deliberately hurt other people I love you all!

and ask him why he didn't let Drew Goddard write the LOST ending.
The Cabin in The Woods mythology fits so perfectly into the LOST universe.
Imagine if we had this instead all that idiotic time travel and religion horse shit.
I'm worried about Prometheus......

no.1 just came to mind because i was reading an old sci-fi story from playboy magazine called "the crooked man" set in a world where heterosexuality is outlawed. In no way would I say gay people are worse than KKK members. I should have been clearer and said horror movies have gone too far into fantasy land and no longer really horrify or disturb people since they're not connected to things that rightly or wrongly DO scare people in the real world. District 9 could have easily been a sci-fi horror like The Fly because it's connected to racism..The Joker horrified us because he's connected to terrorism and anarchy. Horror as a genre has become less horrifying AND lost its appeal amongst other genre's because it is failing to resonate beyond a quick shock when horror can do so much more...The Exorcist is probably one of the strongest examples of horror in its purest form...it got banned due to overt religious references (real horror has been censored and watered down to the point where it's no longer recognizable) ... Seven, Aliens and Silence of the Lambs had alot of Horror elements but to me real horror should disturb and haunt an audience long after the credits roll.

There comes a point when you realise whats going on that you don;t really care whether our 5 protagonists die or not.
Thats the big weakness with this film in that it becomes more about a very clever concept than about you having any emotional investment in the characters.

...of all time.
This list may change without notice when I remember all the movies I've forgotten. Arranged in the order I think of them:
1. The Exorcist
2. Halloween
3. Night of the Living Dead
4. Suspiria
5. Alien
6. The Haunting
7. The Cat People (lewton)
8. Black Christmas
9. The Thing
10. The Evil Dead
11. Carrie
12. The Shining
13. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
14. Dawn of the Dead
15. The Crazies (romero)
16. The Howling
17. The Descent
18. The Children
19. The Reflecting Skin
20. Candyman
21. The Dead of Night
22. Horror of Dracula
23. Martyrs
24. Phantasm
25. Carnival of Souls
26. Zombi (2)
27. The Uninvited
28. Brotherhood of Satan
29. The Birds
30. The Fly
31. Ringu
32. The Brood
33. Rosemary's Baby
34. Rabid
35. They Came From Within
36. Jaws
37. Silence of the Lambs
38. A Nightmare on Elm Street
39. Lisa and the Devil
40. Black Sunday
41. The Omen
42. The Wicker Man
43. Psycho
44. Marebito
45. Hellraiser
46. Don't Look Now
47. Tourist Trap
48. Let the Right One In
49. Ils
50. End of the Line
51. Prince of Darkness
52. Don't Look Now
53. Eyes Without a Face
54. Masque of the Red Death
55. Repulsion
56. Deep Red
57. In the Mouth of Madness
58. Hausu
59. Kwaiden
60. Demons
61. Uzumaki
62. Infection
63. The Conqueror Worn
64. Frontiers
65. The Oblong Box
66. The Devil Rides Out
67. The Creeping Flesh
68. Rec
69. Creature from the Black Lagoon
70. Bride of Frankenstein
71. The Legend of Hell House
72. Re-Animator
73. Lemora, A Child's Tale of the Supernatural
74. The Car
75. From Beyond
76. The Blair Witch Project
77. Equinox
78. The Fog
79. A Tale of Two Sisters
80. Village of the Damned
81. Daughters of Darkness
82. The Beyond
83. Beyond the Door
84. The Company of Wolves
85. Trick R' Treat
86. Spirits of the Dead
87. The Blood on Satan's Claw
88. Let's Scare Jessica to Death
89. The Orphanage
90. Possession
91. The Innocents
92. Poltergeist
93. Session 9
94. Spider Labyrinth
95. The Signal
96. Blue Sunshine
97. Twitch of the Death Nerve (Bay of Blood)
98. Funny Games
99. Night of the Hunter
Now there are a lot of horror movies I adore, from Return of the Living Dead to Tremors to Slither to Bloody Mallory to the remarkable Vincent Price movies Theatre of Blood and Doctor Phibes and the groundbreaking Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter, because they were not purely horror. I almost didn't include Jaws for the same reason but couldn't quite bring myself not to include it.
I also left off movies like Santa Sangre and The Horror of Malformed Men because, horrifying as they are, I don't think of them primarily as horror.
And two (probably more but two that are on my mind) exceptional horrors made for television, The Kingdom and Ghostwatch, would certainly be on this list if they had been originally released in theaters.
And Videodrome, The Seventh Victim, My Bloody Valentine, Audition, Martin, Phenomena, Vampyr, House of Wax, Tenebrae, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Hush hush Sweet Charlotte, Opera, Blood and Blace Lace, The Church, Them (the ones with ants), The Pit and the Pendulum, The Stepford Wives, The Mummy (he went out for a little walk), Peeping Tom, City of the Living Dead, The Day of the Beast, Dellamorte Dellamore, Come and See, I Walked with a Zombie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Kairo, The Vanishing, Night of the Demon, Kwaiden, The Changeling, Torso, The Driller Killer, In a Glass Cage, God Told Me To, Amuck, Jennifer, Ekusute, Contamination, The Tomb of Ligeia, Pieces, Trailer Park of Terror, Island of Terror, The Shuttered Room, It, Vampire Circus, Last House in the Woods, The Lorely's Grasp, Hell of the Living Dead, The Haunted Palace...
...lists suck.

That's why 'Them' utterly confounds my sensibilities and tastes through the vein of horror and suspense-tension. Its brilliantly effective, but each time on reflection I can't help but heavily suspect its essentially revelling in fear of the lower class council estate 'asbo' youths in France or Europe as a whole 'rejected' by society. Even Michael Caine couldn't stop me feeling ill over Harry Brown with a passion, so with Them I have to say hats off there.

Them and Harry Brown is closer to the "root" of horror. Even those romero zombie movies were originally made as social commentary. I guess there's commonly"spoken" fears and then there "unspoken" fears that go unsaid due to political correctness, horror has a great opportunity to visualize the unspoken. eg. 1.A werewolf horror movie where "alpha-male" wolves are stalking and raping human women. 2.A vampire horror movie where German vampires secretly put humans into concentration camps, gas them & then feed - ranking a humans desirability based on blood-type. 3.A frankenstein horror movie like Splice where the good doctor is trying to find a cure for his AIDS by kidnapping children for experimentation and stitching onto them parts of genetically engineered animals. 4.A mummy horror movie where an ancient Egyptian pharaoh can only be eternally young by becoming richer every century and causing the death and poverty of the working class (back then=hebrews/now=us) - making sure the eternal cycle of mass murdering warfare continues through holding back his middle eastern oil reserves & manipulating world finances. Those ideas are rough and over the top but Horror needs to reclaim its position as being relevant and connected to what we really fear before it degenerates into torture porn

...how can you not have Evil Dead Trap on there? With all the Argento-level set pieces and the Cronenberg finish? And yes, forgetting Onibaba is inexcusable. Truth is I didn't give Asian horror an adequate representation.
It completely screws over Euro-horror, too, especially extreme stuff like Cannibal Holocaust (and admittedly I'm not that crazy about that end of the spectrum, but they had a profound effect on the horror landscape) and going by the movies I listed they might as well have not bothered with giallo.
And how can you skip all the great weird European horror fusion stuff like Tam-Lin (starring Al Swearnegen, no less).
Plus, in spite of your misplaced love of The Mist you clearly know your horror so you know how much classic stuff I just ignored and then stuck Bride and The Uninvited on there like guilty admissions. I didn't even mention Quartermass or Freaks, I ignored solid sequels like Hellraiser II or Curse of the Cat People and although I artificially got out of having to mention movies like Behind the Mask or Cabin, Evil Dead II or Return of the Living Dead, we all know that's at least a somewhat bullshit distinction.
I completely ignored the rape horror of the late sixties/early seventies, from Last House on the Left to I Spit on Your Grave (the later of which haunted me for quite a while after I first saw it at the drive-in at the age of eleven) and just because they aren't my favorites doesn't mean they shouldn't be contenders.
I also basically blew off nearly all torture porn, even though there have been a few entries that have also been quality horror. The Australian one about some people looking for a tasmanian wolf, for one...maybe Dying Breed? And I punted on High Tension because how do you rate a movie that you think is two thirds of one of the best horror movies ever that then sacrifices everything it's built in an attempt to be clever? Or what about the American remakes that weren't horrible even if they weren't as good as the originals? If I hadn't had Ringu to look at I would have surely mentioned The Ring, and Quarantine stars Jennifer Carpenter, who my wife allows me to think is awfully cute.
On the other hand, in my defense, doing all of those things would have taken more than me looking at my movies and restraining myself from putting stuff like Count Yorga, Vampire, Frogs and The Devil's Rain on my list (however much I may love these poor, damaged masterpieces).

I mentioned Island of the Dead earlier, which I understand to be terrible, and no one gave it to me in the neck for that. But who knows, they might if I bring up the fact I actually meant Survival of The Dead (again, 'region' specific to tastes that one I think)
That's way more than I could remember off the top of my head anyway Ned. Martin and Andy Warhols Frankenstein would also go on my list.
Oooooo and 'Threads', if that technically counts.

...I do understand that my hatred of The Mist is just a classier case of the flames on Optimus Prime. But damn I loved that story. And when I read that story I was a kid and I saw that story in my head just like it was a movie. And that last line just sent chills down my spine, with its tenuous promise of hope and insistence that no matter how certainly faced with our own extinction we humans just keep going.
And of course back then the notion that The Mist could ever be made at all, with its wall to wall monsters, was just insane. So when it was announced that it was being made, and by Darabont...
...well yeah, I was somewhat excited.
So 2007, I went into the theater and I came out. I'll never put The Mist into a bluray player again. Anyway, I watched that bomb.
Yes, that rant was mangled from Jaws. We all have a few of these. This is one of mine.
And don't you worry about Survival of the Dead. Maybe George isn't quite Romero anymore, but I'll never trash one of his movies and I'll never trash anyone who likes one. He earned it.

am a bit mashed and tired:
I think I definitely agree if were talking about the most visceral emotional-psychological experiences and sensations horror can make an impression with, and that that is often by exposing or exploring an individual to collective psyche of fear expressed through the language of movies. But then I feel that's always been going on to some degree subtly, and then we should also gauge how accurate or rational those fears are at the same time, the reason or machinations behind them, as this can be scary as hell too. So currently, horror films like Them should ideally also be made in measure with ones that either work a) in any mild stretch from those hidden or open fears on a more primal basis of provoking your natural senses with moving images and sound (if cinema does have anywhere left to go there), but more crucially b) by going further than something like Cabin in the Woods in exploring where those fears/horrors/terrible things are generated from ideologically, the impetus for them and why... while utterly maintaining that visceral element. Killlist is that kind of horror movie for me, and one of the best films of last year. Cabin in The Woods is excellent, but works in a different way.
I wonder where Prometheus might fit into this, as its Ridley back in the Alien universe and seemingly embracing a fair bit of the digital age of movie making.
I never thought of Harry Brown as horror, that's interesting. More the Daily Mails wet dream love sandwich of stuff like Death Wish, Die Hard and Unforgiven for example... Wait, no. That's definitely horror of sorts.

but, so... Flames on Optimus Prime strips the Transformers film for you of a less classy message or core theme of sorts? My god, who knew Michael Bay could play around with such strong visual symbolic metaphors? He got there before Ridley Scott!
But no, I understand fella what you mean seriously, have spoken to other people who love the origional story and its ending about this a fair bit and respect the reason why its favoured over Darabonts. Seems to them it's a bit like Roy Batty going, "...naah fuck it!..." and letting go of Deckard at the last minute. Or his own wife and kids. No wait... Damnit, need to sleep.
Really though while I like the original ending I think the one they chose does stir that message while challenging you as the viewer in a more horrific and complex way with it. Its like the theme transcends? at the end to become simultaneously cautionary to extreme human will and suffering in the midst of extreme hope and hopelessness. I'm not sure if that's the most pretentious thing I've ever written on this site, but what the hell that's how I feel. Maybe I just have messed up Daddy issues or something...
Why is it Lost was so popular again?

Is the most slept-on horror movie of the last decade - it botches the ending a bit, but that is a horror movie about real ideas.
Unlike Cabin in the Woods, which was pretty much a one-note joke. It wasn't scary, it wasn't really funny. And the AICN review that said "hey, dummies, YOU are the killers" or whatever typified everything that was wrong with the movie. It was preachy and junky at the same time - not a good combination. And this is coming from a huge Buffy fan.

Were they even real monsters?
If they were how did they subdue and contain them in the first place. There isn't a scratch on them?
If they weren't real? Then WHY THE FUCK didn't the creators think of something as simple as a FUCKING OFF BUTTON?
That was the point when the movie went into full retard territory for me.

...but no where as good as this site and a few others made it out to be. I dragged my friends to see this on opening night because of the raves on this site.
The audience thought it was dumb, groaning when the Wrath of the Titans hands came out of the ground, and at about 10 other times in the film. (It must have taken them a REALLY long time to drive back through that tunnel while dude fixed the tunnel implosion. With a zombie in the back of the RV? Come on.)
The people I made go see this film, convincing them that they would surely be blown away, have decided that I have no idea what a good movie is.
And frankly, after seeing it, I just don't get what was so "great" about this film. Some good jokes, a few great moments, but overall just a good episode of "Angel." Numerous plot holes and an unconvincing set-up, not to mention that they give the entire plot away in the first 10 minutes. I kept expecting a "twist" that never came.
A fun film, but in real-life it wasn't THAT great. A 7/10 at best.

I absolutely agree with everything you said, except I would say 6/10. I don't get the love for this movie.
My wife and I figured out the plot in the first 10 minutes, expecting a twist. There are no twists.
All the love I've read is just obnoxious and somewhat pretentious.
Trick r Treat is better then this.

You know, how John Carpenter made his fun, humorous, low budget high concept movies n the 80's like They Live, Big Trouble in Little China, and Prince of Darkness. Of course this movie is much more "meta", but outside of intellectualizing the plot into it's undercurrent themes, most of the actual immediate functions and effects of the plot are similar to a John Carpenter vibe.

Sorry guys, I got banned a few days ago and wasn't able to respond to whatever it was we were talking about Red Ned Lynch. So uh... where were we? Or have we all moved on now and its best I just jump right in?

I wonder how this film would've been if it was directed as a more realistic sci-fi thriller with no comical aspects at all. the teens= archaeology students / The stoner = conspiracy theorist / the monsters = genetically engineered /the staff beneath the cabin = illuminati / the old gods = ancient alien or fallen angels. The idea was rich enough to be presented seriously and I think the comedy did the opposite of add to it.

...I'm surprised I only did it once, actually. The whole thing was pretty stream of consciousness, me thinking and then looking at my dvds when I started thinking I was probably forgetting a ton of good stuff, which of course I was. My only real rule was not to look at anyone else's best-of lists until I was done because that would have felt like cheating.
The down side to that was I never thought of some really good movies, like The Hitcher, Ju-On and Polanski's The Tenant, while I was making the list, so they don't appear. The good side is that there are a lot more idiosyncratic picks than I would have made otherwise, which is the fun part, because everybody knows The Exorcist. Also some perennials like Friday the 13th and The Hills Have Eyes, which I just don't believe are among the top 100 in the genre, didn't show up.
What I was most afraid of was putting movies down under multiple names. You know, Hausu and House or Shivers and They Came From Within, that sort of thing. Because when you're scanning up a list to see if you've put something on it you're mostly keying on that first letter.
I also only listed 99, which is kind of odd.
Anyway, it was a fun way to burn the better part of an hour while I couldn't think of what to do next because on what I was supposed to be doing.

...but it is. Ideally you should judge a film on its own merits, not tinged with prejudices inspired by feelings about the source material.
For instance, I love the writing of James Ellroy. And I hated LA Confidential. I couldn't stand how they'd simplified the through-lines for a number of characters, compressed the mystery and not only horribly miscast but fundamentally changed Dudley Smith, the looming villain of the Entire LA Quartet.
I actually liked The Black Dahlia better, because it stayed more true to the novel.
But I can recognize the truth that for someone who hadn't read those books, even someone who had read them but wasn't as emotionally invested in the darkest of dark noir world they portrayed, LA Confidential is clearly the superior movie. It has better performances, a clearer and more engaging narrative, and better evokes the time and place.
So yes, I can argue my point with a lot more words and from a lot more directions, and I'm certainly not above doing so when I'm thinking about the movie I wanted to see...
...but it's flames on optimus prime. At the end of the day it's not the movie's job to faithfully render its source material. It's the movie's job to be a good movie.

Not sure why. Probably have to watch it again when it comes out on DVD. Really came across as a jumble of ideas ~ by th
e chaotic ending I'm not sure I was really invested in anything anymore. Just found myself playing "Where's Waldo" with all the monsters they were throwing at us.

and in the thread above there are some people who have spent WAAAAY too much time trying to rationalize their hatred, blow every plot point into a major design flaw, and generally bitch and moan like sad, sorry little shitsacks who can find no joy in their saw, sorry little shitsack lives. And don't know how to post a quote on the talkback REPEATEDLY, so exactly who's the dumb one? You didn't enjoy the movie, that's up to you. but arguing and arguing and arguing is just pathetic. move along, let those of us who did enjoy this smart, subversive and clever movie be as wrong in your mind as we know you are in ours. sheesh.

Ya got me. It must mean I'm wrong and the movie is good. Or maybe I also post on other sites that have logical forum software, and I sometimes forget to transition into nothing-works-here mode.
But its kinda funny that this is your whole argument. I must be dumb because I fucked up in formatting. Surprised that you didn't look for spelling errors. The fact is the movie is shit by any objective standards. The arguments that I and others have presented are sound. But you liked it because you thought it was smart. The pretentious fanboy-wannabe-intellectual had an AWESOME time laughing along with geniuses. He was finally in on the joke. But when people started pointing out that the film was OBVIOUSLY stupid, his world fell apart.
This movie warrants nothing but hate from anybody that appreciates intelligent, original filmaking, regardless of the genre. I am a hater. A hater of shit.

The final act was extremely predictable and I found the actions taken by the main characters to fall in line with the stupid decisions stereotypical victims always make. Up until then, I thought the movie was gold. I just don't like the 3rd act much at all.
And with that being said, I *greatly* prefer Cabin in the Woods to Behind the Mask. Just far more entertaining with more to say about the genre.

I guess I just misinterpreted you. As for your other question, if you count Shyamalan films the Sixth sense and the Village as horror films, they might qualify. I think no one dies in the village and in the Sisth Sense Bruce Willis is basically already dead and the same goes for the little girl who was poisoned.

I really don't understand all the praise for this movie. It was well done, it had clever parts, but it was not all that clever or suspenseful. In fact, I found it boring.
I wish it were otherwise. Horror movies are my favorite genre. Were it not for the references to other horror movies and cliches, and the occasional funny line, this movie would have been just another teen horror movie, dime of dozen.

...the God's aren't trapped under ground, they live there. If the sacrifice isn't made, they get pissed off, and destroy the world. I think it obviously started out that, as mentioned in the film, a virgin thrown into a volcano was enough, but the sacrifices, over time, have become something of an elaborate entertainment for the God's.

Same here. When he got on the bike and started making a dramatic hero speech, I just started giggling in anticipation. I don't understand how anyone could think that part was supposed to be a shocking surprise and the filmmakers "accidentally" ruined it with the hawk hitting the force field earlier. It's obvious that they set it up that way on purpose for comedic effect.

...can eat a bag of dicks. The acting was terrible and awkward all around, the jokes were embarrassingly stupid, the horror elements were not horrifying in the least bit and worst of all, it had absolutely nothing interesting to say about horror movies, horror cliches or horror itself. It was more like a stoner rattling off things he's noticed in a few different movies. Just a total self-congratulatory wankfest. Complete waste of time.

...I loved it. It's easily one of the most entertaining movies I've seen in years. The only thing I don't get is why people (including the director) keep referring to this as a horror movie, then maybe mentioning that it has some humor. I felt that the comedic elements VASTLY overshadowed the horror elements. I was laughing constantly and I don't think the smile ever faded from my face after the title card came up.
The advertising was misleading for this reason, but I can totally understand the marketing people not knowing what to do with this movie. But why is the director acting like this is a straight horror movie with a few laughs sprinkled in? If he were more honest about what kind of movie he made, I think the whiners would have a lot less to complain about.
Oh, well. Judging the movie on its own merits, forgetting about the marketing and one's own expectations, this movie is just incredibly fun to watch. Especially with a big crowd.

"dime of dozen"? Is this like when people write "could of" when they mean "could've"?
Nope. That's like when you make a mistake in a letter but didn't think anyone would bother to make an issue of it. It should have been, "dime a dozen."

I don't understand why some are mad at those who like CITW and others are mad at those who don't!
I didn't like it myself but if you did then great. Movies are made to entertain and if that's what it did for then I'm happy for you but please stop sayin this is a great horror movie and that it redefined the genre, it didnt! It's a throw away popcorn flic that had a few good things and a ton of bad.
And as for the list of great horror movies made in the last ten years how about Drag Me To Hell. Fantastic flic!!!!

Any film ending with a virgin and stoner SIMULTANEOUSLY taking a giants fist right up their ass-pipe before that same fist bitch slaps us in the face ... well THAT good sirs and madams is a comedy. PS. unrelated but I love how the title cloverfield was never explained within the movie.

That's why I think the adaptation of the Mist is excellent including its ending, and is much better than the books ending, both as a piece of cinema in its own right, and from a. writing 'point of view' in general if you like. It 'does the job' much better as horror in cinema or filmmaking, than the origionals does as horror in literature...

I liked it and didn't find it too clever for its own good like some viewers. The third act was a feast for the eyes, though I felt a little let down by the very end. (I expected something else to happen - for example, the virgin transforming into a werewolf after being bitten, killing the stoner despite any good intentions on her part, and saving the world).
Was it ever explained how the stoner was able to kill the zombie outside the cabin (with cameras everywhere!) and have the underground team completely miss the fact that he didn't die? And whose blood was pouring into the engravings above the old gods? The zombies? How was this collected?
I also thought they stretched too far for a gag when releasing gas into the house that made the jock want to split up and search the house separately. (What kind of gas does that again?)
Those two points bothered me after seeing the film, though I did enjoy it. It just wasn't as good as the reviewers on this site led me to believe. (Like that's never happened before... cough*Six String Samurai*cough)

And if you missed it (I did on first viewing) the giant fist at the end was...the audience. You. Men. We are the "Great Old Ones" that the universe of the film must satisfy to survive. We're the ones to whom the whores and stoners (and of course, black people...although neither "Cabin" nor "Scream" had the balls to admit it) are sacrificed. We are the ones with the endless craving for blood. Get that joke, the BIG joke, and all the rest of it falls into place, brilliantly. Best movie so far this year.

"Was it ever explained how the stoner was able to kill the zombie outside the cabin (with cameras everywhere!) and have the underground team completely miss the fact that he didn't die?"
Good point, but what irked me more was that, as I recall, he earlier took a knife in the back from the zombie. That kind of wound can't be shrugged off so easily, especially given all the fighting he did later in the film. I mean, it's not like he was being played by Jesse Ventura.
"And whose blood was pouring into the engravings above the old gods? The zombies? How was this collected?"
I assume the blood was of the dead kids. It was collected by Old Ones magic.

Quote of the movie!
And a great little moment afterwards as the unconscious guard is about to get a very bad dream....
Brilliant stuff...
And Hipshot, you might just be right, but I'd rather some HP Lovecraft style Elder Gods myself...

Went for round two today, had just as much - if not more - of a good time.
One thing I didn't pick up on first viewing:
Since (most) of us have decided that the meat of Cabin deals with the subject of making horror films...
During the scene in which the observation room is filled with male workers pretending to have a job to do when they're actually trying to get a glimpse of tah tahs, at first it appears to be easy (but effective) comic relief.
After revisiting, it was difficult not to think about the countless stories of what is pretty much the exact same situation on an actual set. Whitford's apathetic reaction was pitch perfect, because a lone pair of tits - especially in the internet age, where two girls one cup has infiltrated our lexicon - is ultimately not enough to satiate our carnal instincts.
Another moment in the same scene had even more of an impact on me this time around. When Jenkins asks "do you know what is at stake here?" I feel as if this is a proposed theory regarding our fascination of blending sexuality and violence - could it be possible that the combination of these two elements could serve as a deterrent?
Sadly, I was blinded by my excitement of the writing while watching the first time, and some inevitable mistakes reared their head in no time. Still, the positives outweigh the negatives and this was some of the most fun I've had at the movies, probably since District 9.
It was refreshing to see a genre mash-up with so much to say that didn't play like a fucking term paper or condescend the audience (see Funny Games).
I almost hope this doesn't grow legs at the box office, increasing the threat of watered down imitations, but I have a feeling that when physical copies become available this will be a harsh reality.

This discussions this film has started has re-energized my faith and passion in horror.
I feel as if this truly separates the fanboys from the geeks who have had interest in the genre since they can first remember. This passion may come off as pretension to some, and I'm not denying fanboys' really really enjoying a handful of horror films, but this film was made for those of us that would be satisfied with a woman being thrown into a volcano.

I read your comments with interest. I've been a horror fan all my life. In fact, the first movie I can remember ever seeing was Whale's "Frankenstein," probably on Creature Features back around 1968, when I was perhaps 5 years-old. The second film I remember ever seeing was Browning's "Dracula,' which they showed on Creature Features the following Saturday. So, I share you passion for horror films.
I really appreciate what CITW did as far as deconstructing horror films, and I appreciate the care with which it was made. Still, I found it not very interesting. It's difficult to say why one films grabs you and another doesn't, but this just didn't.
I wonder if it's an age thing. As you can tell, I'm almost 50. Horror films are still my favorite genre, but maybe Joss Whedon's worldview just doesn't click with me; I tried watching "Buffy" a few times, for example, and felt the same way about that show that I did about CITW. Go figure.

I just found to my surprise that Whedon is 48, so he's basically my age. So much for the age difference thing; I guess I'm just not on his wavelength.
That's fine. I have nothing against him and am thankful that he's working in my favorite genre.

I tend to generalize way too often, and it looks like I am guilty of that right now! One of the things I enjoy most about the film is that in the most literal sense, it is not for everyone. My being blinded by the quality of the writing has my brain in a hyperbolic mess right now.I'm 27, and can understand how someone my age can tolerate the more cringe-worthy parts of the film as a whole.
The way this whole mess started for me was growing up around family members who showed me all the different universal monster movies, which led to me making some interesting choices at the video store. I was so obsessed with the idea of monsters, movies like Young Frankenstein were horror in my eyes.
My uncle started introducing me to the slashers and other schlocky classics around 7 yrs old, and would TERRIFY me, claiming Jason would get me in the shower (it's pretty funny that my irrational fear of showers stage first saw its light because of a delightfully awful "Friday" film, considering the fact the "Psycho" is in my top 3 fav).
That's one thing I love about horror - in most cases it's generational. I came to learn that around 10 or 11 my Uncle was taken to see "Alien" by my Grandfather, which started that whole cycle.
Horror films are a unique and entirely communal experience. Love it.

Think about it, kids had to be sacrificed to all of the monsters in the wax exhibit, then at the end all the iconic monsters come out and a huge melee ensues.
That being said, I LOVE both of these movies for the same reasons.

Yes, the movies has plotholes big enough to drive trucks through. Like, when Marty found the camera, they creaked out, but having Thor crash into the forcefield was fine. How did they not know Marty was still alive. With the end of the world riding on it, you think they'd was to see the body before the pull the lever. But it's a fun movie. I was bummed after seeing the list of monsters, it might've been cooler with a better monster. zombie redneck torture family is ok, but I think that ghost was creepy as fuck and would've been badass. I liked the concept of picking an object that chose which monster would kill you. I loved Whitford and Jenkins. I think it's a shame we can't have another movie with them. The movie is satisfying, but makes you want to see more. I wanted to see other scenarios and maybe see more of the other countries, how they worked. I think they dropped the ball. This should've been maybe two movies or an amazing miniseries on hbo or even a comic series. I don't know if they are planning maybe a graphic novel or something, but I really wanted more of that world and one movie wasn't enough.

I'd curious what you mean by the "cringeworthy" parts of the film. You know us horror fans: we sit up straight while everyone else is cringing.
Universal horror movies are special. They established so many of the icons we know and love: the undead, the vampire, the creature, the werewolf, the mad scientist. Between the art deco sets and the dramatic acting styles, and the shameless yet innocent depiction of mysterious foreign cultures, they're the sort of movies that can instill a true love of the creepy and eerie.
It's a short hop from them to THEM, and from THEM to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Exorcists, Dawn of the Dead, Alien, Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, whatever dreck came in-between, and now CITW. Not to mention all the terrific J horror, etc.
Like I said, I'm glad I saw CITW, and maybe I'll like it more on a second viewing. I hope it leads to good things.
But for now: bring on Prometheus!

this has good sequel possibilities...well i guess technically they'd be prequels but yeah. they could just make a different movie for each item in that basement because i assume not everyone over the years picked the diary. i guess it would sorta just be repeating itself and you'd know that everyone dies by the end but still...could be fun for a few movies.
unless they truly have an actual sequel idea that would work then go for it.

On the white board, right after "Witches"
This, my friends, MUST be CITW 2.
Gee, I could think of a few characters from the Whedonverse for the villians...
Julie Benz
Eliza D.
Charisma C. (already a witch in Supernatural)
Dichen L. (Oh Hell yeah)
Morena B.
Allyson Hannigan/Denisof would be too obvious.

*I feel as if this truly separates the fanboys from the geeks who have had interest in the genre since they can first remember. This passion may come off as pretension to some, and I'm not denying fanboys' really really enjoying a handful of horror films, but this film was made for those of us that would be satisfied with a woman being thrown into a volcano.*
Exactly. It's made for people with no taste. The only audience that could find this drivel appealing is the same audience that devours torture porn or the human centipede films. In the past they liked slasher movies and zombie movies, all of them, regardless of the fact that 90% are crap. They just want to see the requisite killing and their favorite horror cliches without any real concern about whether the film works as a compelling or interesting story. The fanboys vs. geeks distinction is beyond me. I am neither.
This movie panders to bad taste. Its not smart. Its not that funny. Its not original. And it definitely isn't scary. Its like an aggregation of everything that makes horror the preferred genre for lowbrow degenerates. In that sense its almost perfect I guess.

They should've had 3 or 4 foreign movies come out the same day as it. One thing I hated was that I wanted more of the mythology and wanted to see more choices. How cool would it have been if they made 3 or 4 other movies, which all too place happening at the same time. So in the movies, you see the other movies happening on the monitors. So you have Takashi Miike doing a Japanese movie. Del Toro doing a Spanish or Mexican version. Dario Argento doing Italy. Edgar Wright in the Uk. All getting to work in their own style, adding to the mythology. And in all of those, the monster gets defeated, ending with it all coming down to the U.S., who blow it. So you'd have something never done before. It would be like the horror version of the Marvel movies.

It's OK. This movie caters to a very niche audience - one that is supremely geeky, deeply-versed in horror over the last 30 years, and possess a dark sense of humor.
Saw this last night with my wife and we were the only 2 laughing and cheering throughout. I was loosing it when the merman attacked at the end LOL. The rest of the theater seemed genuinely confused by this movie - not sure if they should laugh, be disturbed, be scared, etc.
Heard a couple comments coming out and in the restroom afterwards - many dude bros saying things like 'that was dumb, not even scary'. Heard a girl say 'I can't believe EVERYONE died, what an awful movie!'. Some other dumbass said, and I quote "They ripped off Wrath of the Titans with that giant flame dude at the end". WOW.
Sorry for the rant - I loved it and I'm glad this movie made it into theaters. Good interview, great fucking movie!